Ways of Persuasion
by Disgruntled Peony
Summary: Hobbes gets captured by a gang of gunrunners, and they want to know who he REALLY works for... Warning: Character torture ahead! Read at your own risk!


Title: Ways Of Persuasion  
Author: liz_Z  
E-mail: liz_Z@secret-agent.com  
Category: Drama, Angst  
Spoilers: None that I can see.  
Season/Sequel info: Well, I guess it takes place during the second season after Germ Theory. No real spoilers though, as I said- I'm just placing it there because I want to keep up with the times, and since the Agency's working for the Department of Weights and Measures now I figured I might as well go with the flow. The only thing that really connects this story to the second season is the Agency's sponsor, though.  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, they never have been mine, and I really have no chance of them ever being mine. I can dream though, can't I?  
Author's notes: This fic is told in Hobbes' point of view. Don't kill me, please. Believe me, this was harder for me to write than it is for you to read. Torture like this isn't written lightly... I'd also like to thank my friend and beta reader Invision, for helping me come up with a title when I couldn't do it by myself. Invision, you are a lifesaver. :)

  
  
"I don't like this," Fawkes says, giving me a look that says his con sense just went on red alert.

  
"I frown. "Come on Fawkes, there's nothing going on here."

  
"Exactly!" Fawkes exclaims, 'Everything's going right." He rubs the back of his neck in a way that would make me nervous if I didn't know he'd just gotten his shot this morning. Right now it just means he's uncomfortable. I shake my head. Fawkes has no reason to feel jittery; we haven't even really started the job yet. Still, I keep my hand near my gun, just in case.

  
I start thinking about the job, trying to figure out what it is that has Fawkes so nervous. It seems easy enough; we just make like we're trying to buy some weapons from these terrorists that are supposed to be meeting us here, and then arrest 'em when we've got proof that they've been gunrunning. We've done it a million times before; it should be no big deal. Still, Fawkes' con sense is tingling, and that's never good. I'd never tell him, but I trust his instincts a lot more than I let on. I've learned the hard way that he's right a lot of the time. And the way I figure it, better safe and alive than sorry and dead.

  
Finally the people we're supposed to be meeting pull up on the other side of the big abandoned parking lot we're supposed to be making the trade at. I look over at Fawkes. "You ready, partner?" He nods, but he still looks nervous, and now I'm getting nervous too. I try to convince myself it's just pre-mission jitters on both our parts and say with much more bravado than I feel, "Alright, let's get this over with." With that, the two of us start walk across the parking lot toward the terrorists.

  
By this time I'm at least as uneasy as Fawkes is. I do my best to look like I'm afraid of nothing and no one. But still, I can't help but notice how big and open the parking lot is. It'd be so simple for a sniper to shoot us here, out in the open like this... I don't let any of these thoughts affect my appearance though; I don't let any of my nervousness show. Under the circumstances, that'd be just plain unprofessional.

  
I cross the parking lot as fast as I can without seeming hurried. Fawkes follows right behind me, and I'm almost positive I can feel him glaring at my back. He's not nervous now. Now he's angry with me for not listening to him. I did listen to him though, at least partially. Because of his warning I'm that much more alert and ready for trouble. Still, I'm caught by surprise when the terrorists whip out their machine guns and aim them at us.

  
"Fawkes, get down!" I yell, pushing him to the ground and whipping out my own gun. I'm too late, though; Fawkes and I are outnumbered and outgunned, and there's nowhere for us to take cover if the terrorists decide to start shooting. There's no way we're going to get out of this one easily.  
The leader of the terrorists- he has to be the leader, he's the only one not pointing a gun at my head- takes a step forward and gives me a nasty look. "Don't you think I know an undercover cop when I see it?" he says, and then gives the thugs beside him a nod.

  
Two of them lower their guns and walk toward me, ready to put Fawkes and me in handcuffs. But when they get close enough I kick the nearest one in the leg, pulling him in the way of the other terrorist's aim, and yell at Fawkes, "Run!"

  
Now, Fawkes and I have talked a lot about what would happen if we ended up in a situation like this. He always wanted to stay with me and make sure I didn't get hurt, but I always told him that he was supposed to run when I told him to. That way he could go and get help, instead of trying to play the hero and getting us both killed. I guess he listened, 'cause now he does exactly what I've told him to. He pauses for a split second, but then he breaks out in a run, quicksilvering as he goes. Good. Now I don't have to worry about him getting hurt.

  
Of course, while I'm looking over at where Fawkes disappeared to make sure he's gotten away, the thug I'm holding takes advantage of my distraction and elbows me in the gut. This makes me loosen my grip just enough that he's able to rip free and tear my gun out of my hand. As soon as he's done that he lands me a pretty hard punch to the jaw. Then thug number two joins in, and pretty soon the whole group of terrorist goons are tearing into me. One of them slams my head hard onto the cracked asphalt of the parking lot, and everything goes black.  
  
**********  
  
I wake up slowly. It'd be impossible to do anything else, with the way my head is feeling. I have one of the worst headaches I've ever had in my life. Even worse than the hangover I had the day after my father's funeral.

  
I open my eyes, although I'm not sure I really want to. Sure enough, I regret it as soon as I do it. The light in the room I'm in is very bright, and it makes pain flare up in my head in a more concentrated version of the headache I already had. My eyes snap shut again purely out of reflex, but I force them open and keep them that way. After a while my eyes get used to the light and I can look around the room without feeling like my head's about to fall off my shoulders.

  
I begin to really look around at my surroundings, trying to figure out where I am. From what I can see, I'm lying on the floor of a small white room. There's a row of tall metal cabinets lining one wall. They could have something in them that would be able to help me escape, but they all have big locks on them and I don't really have much chance of picking the locks with the way my hands are cuffed behind my back. Other than the row of cabinets and a large hook that's dangling from the ceiling, the room is completely bare.

  
A door opens on the far side of the room and a woman walks through. She's tall, a little more muscular than the average woman, with thick red hair pulled up into a braid that dangles down the back of her neck. In my opinion she wears a little too much makeup. She could almost be considered hot, but there's a sourness to her features that kind of spoils the effect. I can tell right off she's not my kind of woman.

  
She saunters up to me, a nasty smile on her face. "Hello, Agent Hobbes. I'm here to ask you some questions."

  
Oh crap, she knows my name. This is not good. I frown and give her a nasty glare. "How do you know my name?"

  
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out my ID, flipping it open so I can see it clearly. "It says so right here." She leans down, so close I can feel her breath on my face. "Now, who do you work for?"

  
I can answer that, no problem. "The Department of Weights and Measures."

  
The woman frowns. "Come on, do you think I'm stupid? The Department of Weights and Measures doesn't go around trying to bust terrorists and gunrunners. Who do you really work for?" Now that question is one I'm not answering. I just look up at her, acting like I haven't even heard the question. "Who do you work for?" the woman hisses, her eyes turning cold with anger. But I just ignore the question and look up at the ceiling. A small smile crosses my face, because I know I'm making her angry by not answering.

  
The woman glares at me for a moment and then pulls back, turning toward the door. She walks over and opens it, and three big men walk into the room. They grab me and pull me to my feet, a lot rougher than I think is necessary. One of them unlocks the handcuffs around my wrists while the other two keep a firm hold on my shoulders in case I decide to try anything. As soon as the first guy's got the cuffs off, the other two guys turn me around and he puts the cuffs around my wrists again, only this time my hands are in front of me instead of behind.

  
The three men push me into the center of the room, right underneath that big hook dangling from the ceiling. I'm starting to feel a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I've got a pretty good idea of what's about to happen, and it isn't gonna be fun. Sure enough, the three guys lift me off my feet and slip the chain to my handcuffs over the hook. Then they let go and walk out of the room, leaving me dangling from my cuffs at least three inches above the ground.

  
The woman steps up in front of me, and she's got that nasty smile on her face again. She walks over to one of those big cabinets and unlocks it. She pulls out is a sharp, wicked-looking scalpel. By now my stomach is clenching in knots, but I figure if I pretend like I don't care I might be able to convince myself I really don't. So I just smirk and say, "Now I know you're not my type. The sort of girl I like doesn't go around playing with knives."

  
The woman ignores me. She just walks up and holds that scalpel up where I can see it real clearly. "Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

  
Time to put on a brave front. I lean my head forward a little and say, "Well, I've never been known for taking the easy way out." Of course, the woman isn't too pleased with my reply. Her eyes narrow and her lips tighten up into a thin line and I can just tell she's plotting my death or something. Thank goodness Fawkes got away. I don't think I could live with myself if he had been the one in this situation.

  
"Very well then," the woman says in an icy cold voice, "I guess it's time for the fun to begin." Then she takes the scalpel and cuts my shirt off my back. My pants are next. Pretty soon I'm wearing nothing but my boxer shorts, and I've got little trickles of blood running down my body from places where the woman nicked my skin as she was cutting off my clothes. 

  
She comes up from behind me, and I can feel the tip of the scalpel on my back, just barely keeping from biting into the flesh. She leans forward and hisses in my ear, "Who do you work for?" I don't answer, and in response she stabs the scalpel into the small of my back. I grit my teeth, but there is no way I'm talking just because she's decided to poke me a couple of times with a scalpel. I keep my mouth shut, and I don't make any noise.

  
She stabs me again and I hiss in a breath through my teeth, but other than that I don't make a sound. She's not gonna get me; Bobby Hobbes doesn't break that easily. I clamp my mouth shut and stare straight ahead, not even paying attention to what she's asking now. I'm not going to answer, so it doesn't matter whether I hear it or not. It goes on like this for a while, her asking questions, me not answering, and her stabbing me with the scalpel.

  
Then she asks me a question that I notice. "How did your partner disappear back there?" I tense up a little in spite of myself, and she notices. She goes on, trying to push my buttons. "He is your partner, isn't he? You know, we caught him too. After we finish with you, we're going to start in on him. So I'd suggest that you start talking if you want to save him some pain." She steps out in front of me, that smirk of hers getting wider by the second.

  
I don't believe her, she's gotta be bluffing. I saw Fawkes get away back there. Besides, she hasn't mentioned him by name like she did with me. So I decide to try a little test. "You've got Bernard?" I ask, trying to make myself sound as worried as possible.

  
The woman nods. "We've got him all right." I try to keep a smile off my face. No you don't, you liar. I straighten up a little, like I'm about to talk. She thinks she's got me, she thinks I'm gonna say something. And I do, but it's not quite what she expected. Instead of answering the question, I tell her just where she can shove that scalpel of hers.

  
Oh, she's mad now. I thought she was angry before, but now she's furious. Her eyes are nearly as red as Fawkes' are when he's quicksilver mad. And it almost makes me laugh. Here this lady is, trying to get me to talk, and I'm getting under her skin more than she is mine!

  
Of course, now she really kicks in. No more game playing. She asks questions the same as ever, but she's changed her tactics a little. Now instead of stabbing me in the back with the scalpel she's peeling off the skin on my back in long strips. And then, when she's done with that she heads back over to the cabinet and pulls out a bucket of sand. I wonder what she's gonna do with that, but only for a second. Because then she pulls out a handful and starts rubbing it into my back on the places where she's just finished pulling back the skin.

  
My eyes are screwed shut with pain by now, and my tongue is bloody because I've been biting down on it hard to keep myself from screaming. But the woman's not done yet. Oh no, she's not done yet. She walks back to the cabinet and pulls out a bottle of alcohol. None of that sissy stuff either, this is seventy-percent Isopropyl rubbing alcohol. And she goes and dumps half of that big, quart-sized bottle all over my back.

  
All of a sudden I've got liquid fire pouring down my back. I will NOT scream, I will NOT scream. But aw crap it hurts it hurts it hurts...

  
Okay. It's stopped now.

  
The woman's standing in front of me, her arms crossed and the bottle of alcohol resting on the floor beside her. I glare at her with all the hate I can muster. The woman ignores my glare and says in a resigned tone as if she already knows the answer, "This is your last chance. Are you going to cooperate with me or not?" I tilt my head forward and spit in her face. There, how's that for an answer?

  
After that everything's a big blur of pain and questions and no answers that goes around and around and around with no sign of stopping. I have no clue how many times the cycle repeats itself before the woman finally decides to take a break. Hundreds, maybe thousands of times- at least, that's how it seems to me. But finally, after what seems like years, she heaves a sigh of disgust and storms out of the room.

  
By now I'm a bloody mess, from my wrists, which are bloody from where the handcuffs have bitten into them, to my chest, which is covered with cuts and bruises. My arms and legs haven't exactly had it easy either. But my back is the worst. Right now it's just throbbing with a dull ache, but I know that if I so much as move one of my shoulders an inch it'll explode in a blazing fireball of pain.

  
The three thugs from before come walking into the room. I know I should probably be afraid, or at least worried. But right now I'm too tired and sore and aching all over to care. At this point I'm half-tempted to ask one of them to just put me out of my misery, since I'm not gonna tell them anything and they're probably gonna kill me eventually anyway.

  
The three of them walk over and pull me off of that hook. They put me down on the ground standing, but my legs won't hold me and I fall to the floor. One of them swears loudly and leans down to lift me up. Then he swears even louder, trying to wipe the bloody mess he got on himself when he touched me off of his hands and arms. The other two guys laugh, but they don't make any move to help. And I just lie there, listening.

  
All of a sudden the agent in me kicks in again and I realize the three goons aren't paying attention to me. They think they're safe because I haven't moved since I hit the floor and I look like crap. But that's where they're wrong. Because as soon as I realize there's a chance of escape my leg lashes out at the nearest guy and knocks him to the floor. I grab his gun out of its holster and shoot the other two guys before they manage to get their guns up to where they can shoot me. Then I pull myself to my feet, slowly, carefully, never once taking my eyes or my aim off of the remaining guy who's lying on the floor moaning.

  
For a minute we just stare at each other. Then the door to the room slams open and the woman comes in, followed by three more goons. They probably heard the gunshots and came running to see what happened. I don't give 'em a chance to do anything; I aim the gun straight at them and start firing for all I'm worth. I manage to take out one of the guys and shoot the woman in the shoulder before they pull back out of the doorway and into the hall.

  
The guy who's still alive takes advantage of my distraction and lunges for the gun in one of his dead companion's hands, but I see what he's doing and I shoot him too. He's dead before he hits the floor. I turn back to the door; with him out of my way I can focus my full attention on keeping that woman and her thugs out of this room.

  
For the longest time all I hear is silence. I can feel myself tensing up more and more with every second that passes, which isn't very comfortable considering the shape my body is in at the moment. In any other situation I probably would have passed out by now, but this is definitely an exception. Adrenaline is probably the only thing keeping me going at this point, so I'm making very sure to keep my heart rate up.

  
Then, after a long time, I hear noises coming from down the hall. I tense up, ready to shoot. But the people who run through the door aren't the woman or her henchmen. Instead, it's a SWAT team, followed closely by... "Fawkes?" I say in complete disbelief. I lower my gun and fall back to the floor in surprise.

  
Fawkes looks over at me, following the sound of my voice. "Hobbes?" Then he sees what I look like and his face turns pale. "Oh crap, Hobbes..." 

Fawkes is here. He's really here. I'm hurting all over and I'm completely exhausted, but that's okay, because he's here and he won't let anything happen to me... Suddenly I start to feel really dizzy and I pass out.  
  
**********  
  
When I wake up I'm lying on my stomach in a hospital bed. Fawkes is curled up in a chair nearby, and Claire has fallen asleep in another chair right next to me. Her head is on my bed, just inches from my pillow. She looks so beautiful lying there... But then I move a little by accident and she wakes up, and I look away quickly so she won't know I've been staring at her.

  
"Bobby? You're awake?" Claire says with a relieved smile on her face. She hurries over and taps Fawkes on the shoulder, saying, "Come on Darien, Bobby's awake!"

  
Fawkes jerks a little and sits up, obviously still half-asleep. "Huh?" Then he realizes what Claire said and jumps to his feet, coming over to look at me. "Hey there Hobbesy, how you doin'?"

  
I give Fawkes a weary smile. "Well, my back hurts and I feel like crap, but other than that I'm not doing too bad. How about you?"

  
"Oh, I'm fine. I got out of the parking lot okay and I got the fat man looking for you."

  
I frown a little as a thought occurs to me. "Just how did you find me, anyway?"

  
Fawkes grins a little at this. "We triangulated your cell phone. The terrorists took it out of your pocket and everything, but they just stuck it in a dumpster in the back of the building they had you in, so it wasn't too hard to find you. Oh yeah, and the Official called in a SWAT team to make sure we caught everyone."

  
"Now I remember that," I say, "I nearly blew one of their heads off." I look over at Claire. "So, how am I doing? What's the news from the doctor's office?"

  
"Well," Claire says, pushing a strand of her lovely blond hair away from her face, "They say you should be fine. It'll take a while for you to heal of course, and you probably won't want to lie down on your back for a couple of weeks, but they managed to clean your wounds and we're going to do everything we can to help you heal with minimal scarring."

  
I give Claire a flirtatious smile. "Don't worry Keepy, I have no doubts about your medical skills." Claire blushes a little and smiles back at me.

  
"So," I say, turning to Fawkes, "Did you catch those terrorists?"

  
Fawkes nods. "Oh yeah, we caught 'em all right. There was this one, a woman with a bullet wound in her shoulder, gave us some trouble, but we managed to grab her. Other than that, it was pretty easy."

  
I frown at the mention of the woman I shot. "You got any info on that woman?"

  
"Yeah, her name is Marie Beth Cotrofoldi, and she's got a rap sheet even longer than mine. She's headed off to a maximum security prison as we speak."

  
"Good," I mutter, ignoring the curious look Fawkes gives me. I may tell him about what I went through in that place someday, but I'd just as soon not. Fawkes deserves to keep at least some innocence, and I'd prefer to forget those memories.

  
"So," Fawkes says, giving me a friendly smile, "After you've recovered enough, you wanna come over to my place for a beer and a movie or something?"  


I nod, returning Fawkes' smile. "Sure, why not?"

  
Fawkes seems happy with my answer. He pulls himself to his feet and says, "Well, I've got to write up some type of report on what happened here. I've been putting it off, but I don't have any excuse anymore."

  
I shake my head, laughing a little. That's just like Fawkes; he hates paperwork in all ways, shapes, and forms. "Talk to you later, partner." Fawkes walks out of the room. Claire follows, and I'm left to myself. I close my eyes, savoring the quiet, and slowly drift off to sleep.  
  
The End 


End file.
